July 18, 2015

How to Give a Speech without Saying Anything

July 18, 2015

The minimum wage. This...?

Sanders Calls for Minimum Wage Increase
http://www.sanders.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/sanders-calls-for-minimum-wage-increase

Sanders calls minimum wage a 'starvation wage'
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/dem-primaries/240871-sanders-calls-minimum-wage-a-starvation-wage

Sanders calls for $15 minimum wage, income eqaliity in Sioux City speech
http://siouxcityjournal.com/news/sanders-calls-for-minimum-wage-income-eqaliity-in-sioux-city/article_37c6da2d-2dc7-544b-b9f8-af7b8c332e46.html




Or more of this?

Hillary Clinton Tells Minimum Wage Fast Food Workers: 'I Want To Be Your Champion'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/06/07/hilllary-clinton-minimum-wage_n_7530914.html

Hillary Clinton promised Sunday to fight for higher pay for low-wage workers.
http://money.cnn.com/2015/06/07/news/economy/hillary-clinton-minimum-wage/index.html

Hillary Clinton's answer to the wage gap: Profit-sharing?
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/USA-Update/2015/0713/Hillary-Clinton-s-answer-to-the-wage-gap-Profit-sharing-video

Hillary Clinton Declines to Endorse $15 Minimum Wage
http://mic.com/articles/122461/hillary-clinton-declines-to-endorse-15-minimum-wage




Some people evolve their views. Others revolve their views. Bernie has had the correct view all along.

July 15, 2015

Goldwater warned the GOP against radical religious nutjobs like Walker and Huckabee...

But he never understood the real reason for their ascent to power.

Scanning over the GOP candidate list of radical, religious, neo-confederate nut jobs like Cruz, Walker, Perry, et al, I can't help but be amazed at how quickly, as a nation, we have come to embrace the racism and idiocy that define the modern conservative.

Of course, in retrospect, it isn't that hard to understand. The Democratic Party has failed to represent working class Americans. Without any opposing political party presenting a credible counter balance to the economic policies that are destroying the the middle class and below, people are reaching for remedies at the extreme and that makes them perfect for exploitation by charlatans like Perry, Cruz and Walker.

TPP is destructive to the middle class.

Banking deregulation is destructive to the middle class.

Sending jobs to unregulated, low wage workforce in Mexico is destructive to the middle class.

Ignoring the causes of global warming is destructive to the middle class.

This isn't governing from the "center". There is nothing moderate about letting Wall Street operate with criminal impunity while sacrificing the livelihoods of American families to build the nations of India, China and Vietnam.

Conservatives will hammer all day long about "gay marriage" or "excessive Wall Street regulation" as the cause for our declining quality of life. It's an easy lie that resonates well with many people because, until recently, there has been no real counter balance for the working men and women of the USA. How could the Democratic Party speak out against sending jobs to slave labor in Asia when they continue to fight for and defend the very policies that enable it?

The REAL cause of our middle decline is the inertia caused by conservative intransigence from "moderate" conservatives like Debbie Wasserman Shultz and Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side, and the hard core conservatives that constitute the entire Republican Party on the Republican side.

Meanwhile, even without understanding the root cause, Goldwater recognized the danger of religion and politics.



I will say this about religion:
Thank god we have Bernie Sanders speaking facts and truth about the forces in our political establishment which do little more than continuously reward billionaires while treating millions of American workers like farm animals. Sanders is speaking an obvious truth to the layers of political lies that have betrayed the working people of the USA.

Until the Democratic Party is willing to invest in something other than the same voodoo trickle-down policies of deregulation and free-trade agreements, things are only going to get worse for the middle class and below no matter which party is in office. And this fact will continue to supply racist, religious extremists with a ready supply of voters.

July 14, 2015

The Civil War Really Was About Slavery. Really. It Was.

When someone gets on TV and says "it wasn't about slavery, it was about states' rights...", they are lying. And it's also a subtle political threat. What they are really saying is "we have the right to impose terminal suffering on another human being in the pursuit of profit. It is our inalienable right, we fought for it then, it was a just cause, and we'll fight for it now."

So here is the truth taken from their own words as transcribed from the proceedings of slave holding states conventions on secession, 1860 - 1861. These are some of the best sources available for learning the true cause of the US Civil War: SLAVERY.

Mississippi

Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery-- the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization. That blow has been long aimed at the institution, and was at the point of reaching its consummation. There was no choice left us but submission to the mandates of abolition, or a dissolution of the Union, whose principles had been subverted to work out our ruin.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp

South Carolina

The Constitution of the United States, in its fourth Article, provides as follows: "No person held to service or labor in one State, under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up, on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due." [editor's note: this is the Fugitive Slave Clause in the original Constitution whereby the North promised to return escaped slaves to their "owners" in the South]
This stipulation was so material to the compact, that without it that compact would not have been made. The greater number of the contracting parties held slaves, and they had previously evinced their estimate of the value of such a stipulation by making it a condition in the Ordinance for the government of the territory ceded by Virginia, which now composes the States north of the Ohio River.
The General Government, as the common agent, passed laws to carry into effect these stipulations of the States. For many years these laws were executed. But an increasing hostility on the part of the non-slaveholding States to the institution of slavery, has led to a disregard of their obligations, and the laws of the General Government have ceased to effect the objects of the Constitution.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_missec.asp

Virginia

But, Mr. President, these feelings have gone – this hope has fled.*** I no longer believe that the Union of our fathers and the Government founded upon it can be preserved.*** I have brought myself to look upon a dissolution as inevitable; nay, more, in the presence of the events that surround us, and spread their baneful influences over the land, I look upon it as a necessity, and as desirable. I can never bring myself to consent that the slaveholding States shall become the subject provinces of the non-slaveholding States, to which condition their continuance in this Union, in my judgment, will reduce them.
Mr. BENJAMIN WILSON, of Harrison—
I beg pardon of this Convention while I assign the reason that induced me to vote for the proposition of the gentleman from Fauquier (Mr. SCOTT). We all admit that war is now imminent, nay, inevitable. It cannot be denied but that it is necessary for Virginia to take some action . . . The only question about which we differ, as I understand, is as to the manner in which she should protect herself. ***It is very important, and very desirable in this crisis that we should have the unanimous concurrence and co-operation of our people. . . . There is no use in endeavoring to disguise the fact that the institution of slavery is one of the acting causes that brought about this calamity. . .*** I understand that this Ordinance cannot be operative until the people pass upon it; and whilst we are in the embarrassing predicament of having passed the Ordinance of Secession, our enemies will go on preparing, and we will be liable to attack upon any of our borders without the means of defence . . . I think it is better for us to call to our aid the border slave States, whose co-operation in the coming struggle is essential to our success
The people of Virginia, in their ratification of the Constitution of the United States of America, adopted by them in Convention on the twenty-fifth day of June, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-eight, having declared that the powers granted under the said Constitution were derived from the people of the United States, and might be resumed whensoever the same should be perverted to their injury and oppression; and the Federal Government, having perverted said powers, not only to the injury of the people of Virginia, but to the oppression of the Southern Slaveholding States.
http://civilwarscholars.com/2011/11/the-comet-strikes-april-17-1861-the-conclusion/

Georgia

A brief history of the rise, progress, and policy of anti-slavery and the political organization into whose hands the administration of the Federal Government has been committed will fully justify the pronounced verdict of the people of Georgia. The party of Lincoln, called the Republican party, under its present name and organization, is of recent origin. It is admitted to be an anti-slavery party. While it attracts to itself by its creed the scattered advocates of exploded political heresies, of condemned theories in political economy, the advocates of commercial restrictions, of protection, of special privileges, of waste and corruption in the administration of Government, anti-slavery is its mission and its purpose. By anti-slavery it is made a power in the state. The question of slavery was the great difficulty in the way of the formation of the Constitution.
While the subordination and the political and social inequality of the African race was fully conceded by all, it was plainly apparent that slavery would soon disappear from what are now the non-slave-holding States of the original thirteen. The opposition to slavery was then, as now, general in those States and the Constitution was made with direct reference to that fact.
http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/csa_geosec.asp

Alabama

The day for the election of delegates has been designated in advance of the issuance of the Proclamation in order that the minds of the people may at once be directed to the subject, and that the several counties may have ample time to select candidates to represent them. Each voter of the State should immediately consider the importance of the vote he is to cast. Constitutional rights, personal security, and the honor of the State are all involved. He must decide, on the 24th December, the great and vital question of submission to an Abolition Administration, or of secession from the Union. This will be a grave and momentous issue for the decision of the people. To decide it correctly, they should understand all the facts and circumstances of the case before them. It may not be improper or unprofitable for me to recite a few of them.
Who is Mr. Lincoln, whose election is now beyond question? He is the head of a great sectional party calling itself Republican: a party whose leading object is the destruction of the institution of slavery as it exists in the slaveholding States. Their most distinguished leaders, in and out of Congress, have publicly and boldly proclaimed this to be their intention and unalterable determination. Their newspapers are filled with similar declarations. Are they in earnest? Let their past acts speak for them.
Nearly every one of the non-slaveholding States have been for years under the control of the Black Republicans. A large majority of these States have nullified the fugitive slave law, and have successfully resisted its execution. They have enacted penal statutes, punishing, by fine and imprisonment in the penitentiary, persons who may pursue and arrest fugitive slaves in said State. They have by law, under heavy penalties, prohibited any person from aiding the owner to arrest his fugitive slave, and have denied us the use of their prisons to secure our slaves until they can be removed from the State. They have robbed the South of slaves worth millions of dollars, and have rendered utterly ineffectual the only law passed by Congress to protect this species of property. They have invaded the State of Virginia, armed her slaves with deadly weapons, murdered her citizens, and seized the United States Armory at Harper's Ferry. They have sent emissaries into the State of Texas, who burned many towns, and furnished the slaves with deadly poison for the purpose of destroying their owners.

Louisiana looks to the formation of a Southern confederacy to preserve the blessings of African slavery, and of the free institutions of the founders of the Federal Union, bequeathed to their posterity. As her neighbor and sister State, she desires the hearty co-operation of Texas in the formation of a Southern Confederacy. She congratulates herself on the recent disposition evinced by your body to meet this wish, by the election of delegates to the Montgomery convention. Louisiana and Texas have the same language, laws and institutions. Between the citizens of each exists the most cordial social and commercial intercourse. The Red river and the Sabine form common highways for the transportation of their produce to the markets of the world. Texas affords to the commerce of Louisiana a large portion of her products, and in exchange the banks of New Orleans furnish Texas with her only paper circulating medium. Louisiana supplies to Texas a market for her surplus wheat, grain and stock; both States have large areas of fertile, uncultivated lands, peculiarly adapted to slave labor; and they are both so deeply interested in African slavery that it may be said to be absolutely necessary to their existence, and is the keystone to the arch of their prosperity. Each of the States has an extended Gulf coast, and must look with equal solicitude to its protection now, and the acquisition of the entire control of the Gulf of Mexico in due time. No two States of this confederacy are so identified in interest, and whose destinies are so closely interwoven with each other. Nature, sympathy and unity of interest make them almost one. Recognizing these facts, but still confident in her own powers to maintain a separate existence, Louisiana regards with great concern the vote of the people of Texas on the ratification of the ordinance of secession, adopted by your honorable body on the 1st of the present month. She is confident a people who so nobly and gallantly achieved their liberties under such unparalleled difficulties will not falter in maintaining them now. The Mexican yoke could not have been more galling to "the army of heroes" of '36 than the Black republican rule would be to the survivors and sons of that army at the present day. The History and Debates of the Convention of the People of Alabama", William R. Smith
http://civilwarcauses.org/govmoore.htm

Louisiana

The people of Louisiana would consider it a most fatal blow to African slavery, if Texas either did not secede or having seceded should not join her destinies to theirs in a Southern Confederacy. If she remains in the union the abolitionists would continue their work of incendiarism and murder. Emigrant aid societies would arm with Sharp's rifles predatory bands to infest her northern borders. The Federal Government would mock at her calamity in accepting the recent bribes in the army bill and Pacific railroad bill, and with abolition treachery would leave her unprotected frontier to the murderous inroads of hostile savages. Experience justifies these expectations. A professedly friendly federal administration gave Texas no substantial protection against the Indians or abolitionists, and what must she look for from an administration avowedly inimical and supported by no vote within her borders. Promises won from the timid and faithless are poor hostages of good faith. As a separate republic, Louisiana remembers too well the whisperings of European diplomacy for the abolition of slavery in the times of annexation not to be apprehensive of bolder demonstrations from the same quarter and the North in this country. The people of the slaveholding States are bound together by the same necessity and determination to preserve African slavery. The isolation of any one of them from the others would make her a theatre for abolition emissaries from the North and from Europe.
Address of George Williamson, Commissioner from Louisiana to the Texas Secession Convention http://www.civilwarcauses.org/gwill.htm

North Carolina

From my first entrance into public life, I have been an advocate of the right of secession . . .In this connection, I would state that, in my judgment, the time has come for the Southern states yet in the Union, [who recognize] recognizing the institution of slavery, should proceed to carry out this inestimable remedy of secession, and to seek, outside of the present Union, such associations as would afford them the protection denied them within it.
Mr. Speaker, this extraordinary crisis in the history of our country will mark an epoch long to be remembered. It will stand out boldly, in all coming ages, as a monument of the stupendous folly and wicked criminality of demented fanaticism; for no unprejudiced man can deny that the fanaticism of anti-slavery zealots has involved the country in the troubles now precipitating its destruction. Through the North, it has advanced with continuously-accelerated pace, gathering strength in its progress, until it has obtained control of the dominant party of the country, and prostrated all other parties before it. It now seeks to pass the boundary, and carry out its nefarious purposes in the South ; it seeks to arm brother against brother and father against son; it denounces slavery as the "sum of all villanies,"and proclaims its purpose to extirpate the institution. It has become a demon of destruction that fain would be " fed by rites more savage than the priests of Moloch taught." It now craves to satiate its gloating appetite with the blood of countless hecatombs of southern victims. To curb and suppress this fell spirit of fanaticism, the northern States should have exerted their energies; they should have inflicted condign punishment on the seditious agitators who nourished it. We had a right to expect this much of them. Have they done this? Not by any means. On the contrary, State Legislatures have encouraged it in almost every imaginable shape and form.
(Thomas Ruffin, 20 Feb 1861, in the US House of Representatives, delegate, representing Alamance County, to the May 1861 North Carolina Secession Convention in Raleigh, representative of NC at the Virginia Peace Conference in Washington)
https://archive.org/details/staterightsstate00ruff

Arkansas

1st. Resolved, That the platform of the party know^n as the black republican party, contains unconstitutional dogmas, dangerous in their tendency and highly derogatory to the rights of slave states, and among them the insulting, injurious and untruthful enunciation of the right of the African race in this country to social and political equality with the whites.

2d. Resolved, That it is the sense of this convention, from the pn?t history of the pai'ty, known as the black repubHcan party from the past action o\ its leaders, and their course in the present crisii!, and from the acts, utterances and conduct of its newly elected president, that said party intends to abide by and carry out, if possible, its insulting and unconstitutional platform.

3d. Resolved, That the seceded states have ample justification for having dissolved the tics w'hich bound them to the old Federal Union, in the constant and unconstitutional political warfare made by the party, known as the black republican party, upon the institutions of the slave states, wdiich warfare has culminated in the election of a president by that party, by a purely sectional vote — upon an unconstitutional platform, the principles of which, if carried out, would utterly ruin the South.

4th. Resolved, That this convention cannot shut its eyes upon the fact that the government of the United States is now under the control of said black republican party, and that said party has power to use every arm of the same, except, perhaps, the judicial.

5th. Resolved, That in the opinion of this convention it is a conclusion clearly resulting from the foregoing that every feeling of honor, interest and sympathy demand I hat the State of Arkansas should discontinue her present political relations with the United States of America, and unite herself with the Confederate States of x\merica.

Mi\ Kelley moved to refer said resolutions to the committee on federal relations; but afterwards withdrew his motion.

Mr. Bush offered the folio v.'ing as a substitute:
Resolved, That if the republican party should increase in strength, and thereby be able to carry out its purposes in the federal government, Arkansas, acting in concert with er sister border states, has ample means of resistance, and is fully able at any time to resist any unconstitutional aggressions, and wc have no need, therefore, to adopt, hastily, this last resort.

Great solace is indulged in by some, that it is the avowed purpose of black republican domination to permit slavery to remain unmolested in the states where it nov/ exists; whilst it is as distinctly announced upon the other hand, that the institution shall be denied all power of expansion over territory now possessed or hereafter to be acquired.

The laws of physical science perceive no stand point, from which there is neither progression nor retrogade action. Peoples, governments, and the institutions of government, must either recede or advance. The area of slavery must be exttndcd correhdive with its antagonism, or it will be put speedily in the " coarse of ultimate extinction." It must invest the southern portion of North America, from the Atlantic to the Paciiic, south of 3G deg. and SO min. north latitude, to be permanent; else when hemmed in by a cordon of fire, " like a scorpion, it will sting itself to death." Pu.t in the bounds, and it will soon have a general goal-delivery.

The extension of slavery is the vital 'point of the whole controversy between the North and the South, as is plainly manifested by the persistent opposition of the northern people to its being engrafted upon any newly acquired territory, whether south or north of the negro line. Does there exist inside the borders of Arkansas any diversity of sentiment, as to the religtous or moral right of holding negro slaves? Do any imagine that the non-slaveholder will be less involved pecuniarily and socially, in the extirpation of this institution than the slaveholder himself. The productive portion of the soil of Arkansas is so geographically circumstanced as to preclude the idea that it can be successfully cultivated by white labor. From these more fertile regions is produced by slave labor in stiperabundance, the staple commodity, cotton — justl}" stiled commercial king of Europe and America. From the exportation of this article alone, our people receive annually an influx of capital, which permeates the hill-tops and the valleys of every section and portion of the state. The cotton planter of the South exposed to insolubrious clim.es, indeed is but the factor for his northern neighbor — inhabitino: the mountain region, blessed with health, free trade and remunerative prices for his grain, frnit, stock and other articles produced for and sold in a southern market. Who colud find a market for the surplus products of North Arkansas, if the more genial soil of the South was deprived ot slave labor? God in his omnipotent wisdom, I believe, created the cotton plant — the African slave — and the lower Mississippi valley, to clothe and feed the world, and a gallant race of men and women produced upon its soil to defend it, and execute that decree.
https://archive.org/stream/journalofbothses00arka/journalofbothses00arka_djvu.txt

Tennessee

THE ninth section of the third article of the Constitution, provides that, on extraordinary occasions, the Governor may convene the General Assembly. Believing the emergency contemplated, to exist at this time I have called you together. In welcoming you to the capitol of the State, I can but regret the gloomy auspices under which we meet. Grave and momentous issues have arisen, which, to an unprecedented degree, agitate the public mind and imperil the perpetuity of the Government.

The systematic, wanton, and long continued agitation of the slavery question, with the actual and threatened aggressions of the Northern States and a portion of their people, upon the well-defined constitutional rights of the Southern citizen; the rapid growth and increase, in all the elements of power, of a purely sectional party, whose bond of union is uncompromising hostility to the rights and institutions of the fifteen Southern States, have produced a crisis in the affairs of the country, unparalleled in the history of the past, resulting already in the withdrawal from the Confederacy of one of the sovereignties which composed it, while others are rapidly preparing to move in the same direction.

To evade the issue thus forced upon us at this time, without the fullest security for our rights, is, in my opinion, fatal to the institution of slavery forever. The time has arrived when the people of the South must prepare either to abandon or to fortify and maintain it. Abandon it, we cannot, interwoven as it is with our wealth, prosperity, and domestic happiness.
Call for a Referendum on a Tennessee Secession Convention, Tennessee Governor Isham G. Harris, January 7, 1861
http://www.americancivilwar.com/documents/isham_harris.html

Texas

We hold as undeniable truths that the governments of the various States, and of the confederacy itself, were established exclusively by the white race, for themselves and their posterity; that the African race had no agency in their establishment; that they were rightfully held and regarded as an inferior and dependent race, and in that condition only could their existence in this country be rendered beneficial or tolerable.
That in this free government all white men are and of right ought to be entitled to equal civil and political rights; that the servitude of the African race, as existing in these States, is mutually beneficial to both bond and free, and is abundantly authorized and justified by the experience of mankind, and the revealed will of the Almighty Creator, as recognized by all Christian nations; while the destruction of the existing relations between the two races, as advocated by our sectional enemies, would bring inevitable calamities upon both and desolation upon the fifteen slave-holding states
http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/active_learning/explorations/south_secede/south_secede_texas.cfm

Alexander H. Stephens, Confederate VP, Savannah, Georgia, March 12, 1861

But not to be tedious in enumerating the numerous changes for the better, allow me to allude to one other though last, not least. The new constitution has put at rest, forever, all the agitating questions relating to our peculiar institution African slavery as it exists amongst us the proper status of the negro in our form of civilization. This was the immediate cause of the late rupture and present revolution. Jefferson in his forecast, had anticipated this, as the “rock upon which the old Union would split.” He was right. What was conjecture with him, is now a realized fact. But whether he fully comprehended the great truth upon which that rock stood and stands, may be doubted. The prevailing ideas entertained by him and most of the leading statesmen at the time of the formation of the old constitution, were that the enslavement of the African was in violation of the laws of nature; that it was wrong in principle, socially, morally, and politically. It was an evil they knew not well how to deal with, but the general opinion of the men of that day was that, somehow or other in the order of Providence, the institution would be evanescent and pass away. This idea, though not incorporated in the constitution, was the prevailing idea at that time. The constitution, it is true, secured every essential guarantee to the institution while it should last, and hence no argument can be justly urged against the constitutional guarantees thus secured, because of the common sentiment of the day. Those ideas, however, were fundamentally wrong. They rested upon the assumption of the equality of races. This was an error. It was a sandy foundation, and the government built upon it fell when the “storm came and the wind blew.

Our new government is founded upon exactly the opposite idea; its foundations are laid, its corner- stone rests, upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery subordination to the superior race is his natural and normal condition. This, our new government, is the first, in the history of the world, based upon this great physical, philosophical, and moral truth. This truth has been slow in the process of its development, like all other truths in the various departments of science. It has been so even amongst us. Many who hear me, perhaps, can recollect well, that this truth was not generally admitted, even within their day. The errors of the past generation still clung to many as late as twenty years ago. Those at the North, who still cling to these errors, with a zeal above knowledge, we justly denominate fanatics. All fanaticism springs from an aberration of the mind from a defect in reasoning. It is a species of insanity. One of the most striking characteristics of insanity, in many instances, is forming correct conclusions from fancied or erroneous premises; so with the anti-slavery fanatics. Their conclusions are right if their premises were. They assume that the negro is equal, and hence conclude that he is entitled to equal privileges and rights with the white man. If their premises were correct, their conclusions would be logical and just but their premise being wrong, their whole argument fails. I recollect once of having heard a gentleman from one of the northern States, of great power and ability, announce in the House of Representatives, with imposing effect, that we of the South would be compelled, ultimately, to yield upon this subject of slavery, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics, as it was in physics or mechanics. That the principle would ultimately prevail. That we, in maintaining slavery as it exists with us, were warring against a principle, a principle founded in nature, the principle of the equality of men. The reply I made to him was, that upon his own grounds, we should, ultimately, succeed, and that he and his associates, in this crusade against our institutions, would ultimately fail. The truth announced, that it was as impossible to war successfully against a principle in politics as it was in physics and mechanics, I admitted; but told him that it was he, and those acting with him, who were warring against a principle. They were attempting to make things equal which the Creator had made unequal.
Alexander H. Stephens, Confederate VP, Savannah, Georgia, March 21, 1861 http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/cornerstone-speech/

Upon consideration of the above... for all the bloodshed and suffering of the Civil War, the rich and powerful have simply turned to Asia, Mexico, S. America for their ready supply of oppressed labor. The means to slavery has gotten more technical, more politically correct - the global economy, free trade, saving the 3rd world, etc. The apology rhetoric is also hauntingly familiar to the modern revisionists defending our historic reliance on oppressed workforces. Today we hear "people are so much better off as oppressed workers under free trade" , "their race predisposes them to doing mentally tedious tasks under high stress working conditions", "Asians are so much smarter and harder working" and so on.

Today, as it was 150 years ago, making money is about access to a cheap, carefully controlled workforce and an unregulated working environment. We haven't changed as much as we think we have.

May 30, 2015

Hillary has a lot of negative history, what's wrong with bringing it up?

She supported trade bills that have sent millions of jobs to slave labor in Mexico and Asia, causing devistation to the middle class and below.

Her wealth has been earned by trading facile, stroking speeches to Wall Street CEOs for political access and millions in cash.

Her State Dept. legacy with Syria, Libya, Yemen and Israel has left chaos, death and destruction in it's wake.

Her history as a Walmart director (one of the nations most exploitative companies) far overshadows any fancy speeches about equal pay.

Her views on same sex marriage changed as soon as her team of advisers revealed that it was no longer convenient to speak out against it.

She's been silent on contemporary civil rights abuses against minorities, silent on NSA overreach, silent on TPP. Silent on our failed no child left behind policies.

In fact, she's been silent on just about every necessary change needed to advance the quality of life for those in the middle class and below. Who is she really campaigning to represent?

We deserve a better presidential nominee than this.

Bernie Sanders is better than this.

And this is something all the cash on Wall Street cannot buy.

May 30, 2015

"They don’t look at these things unless money is offered, and it has to be $500,000.”

If we want to change anything, we have to end the sleazy 3rd-way political influence being bought and sold in the free market. I have long argued that the Clinton's are using their political celebrity to divert cash away from worthy organizations struggling to make a difference.

We need to stop pretending this shit smells like roses and reform the Democratic Party.

Haitians protested outside the gala organized by the Happy Hearts Fund, which has worked with the Clinton Foundation on projects in Haiti. Credit Tony Savino/Corbis

May 29, 2015

for the love of god, stop telling us what to write...

If there is a candidate who doesn't represent the best interests of the average working Americans and who has a history of supporting and being supported by Wall Street, has an aggressive pro-military posture, then we better damn well speak up about it.

What could be more democratic than this?

And, stop with the bullshit concern attacks against anyone who points out the inconvenient truth that some Democrats support many core Republican principals - such as Wall Street deregulation, tax benefits for large corporations, off shoring of US jobs, horrible welfare reforms, free trade agreements, oil drilling and fracking in wilderness areas, etc.

You have a choice.

If you want to hear carefully scripted views designed not to offend the status quo, then go watch CNN.

May 26, 2015

Bernie Sanders never told us to stop criticizing Hillary's Wall Street dependency

We won't be silent. The emphasis is mine:

“I will tell you that I have never run a negative political ad in the state of Vermont in my life. People of Vermont know that. I just don't think that that's what politics is about. So, will I criticize Hillary Clinton on her position of TPP, or the lack of position? Will I criticize her on her views of Wall Street? Will I criticize her on foreign policy? That's what democracy is about. But taking cheap shots at people, making it personal, I don't think that's what politics should be about.”

http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2015/05/24/sen-bernie-sanders-i-vt-to-brian-stelter-on-cnns-reliable-sources-you-have-abc-cbs-and-nbc-not-devoting-one-minute-to-the-most-significant-trade-agreement-in-the-history-of-the-usa/

May 26, 2015

Technocrats, the Third Way and the Death of Diversity

I had some time this weekend to put some thoughts down on paper and started expanding on the idea that we are a technocratic state run by 3rd way types in both parties. I only got this far, but maybe someone can pick up on the theme and do a better job of it.

I'm not talking about ethnic diversity. I'm talking about something deeper. I'm talking about the native and organic aptitude and talent that people are born with. It's what makes a musician and the carpenter and the scientist what they are. It's exactly this human diversity of talent being stripped from businesses, occupations and careers in the US, replaced by a political vision of an engineered society, operating lock-step as a machine, serving the needs of our political elite. I've come to believe that organic human diversity of skill is far more threatening to our ruling oligarchy than any perception of race or sex. If there is going to be a challenge to the status quo, it's going to come from people who have the raw talent to imagine something better than the unacceptable state of our class based society which values wealth over justice and equality. Somewhere in that talent pool are people who share a gift with those who first formed the nation in search of justice and equality. After all, by the standards of their day, they were extraordinarily successful. And that surely must scare our ruling class to death.

The neo-lib and neo-con both have faith in the idea that corporate efficiency can solve difficult social problems. But in actuality, the deference to corporate interests as a legitimate political principal is just a bullshit cover for the dirty business of financing the high standard of living of our political leaders. We are expected to blindly accept the idea that the wealthy leadership of our party represents proof of good, while the wealthy leadership of their party represents proof of evil. But the truth is, political leadership in both parties has dignified, through the use of complex, high-minded semantics, the act of taking cash in return for passing laws and entitlements exclusively beneficial to corporations. From a technical point of view, what could be more efficient than a government that takes cash for service?

To legitimize this corruption within the context of a nation of self-governing people, the corporations simply reclassified themselves as corporate-persons, with the same basic rights of an individual. This recent development is something unlikely to ever be challenged by our political elite because it is an abstraction fully compatible with the core governing principals of a political monopoly, namely that people must earn the right (literally, in cash) to be represented by their own government.

So, here we are. A nation governed by corporations.

If there's one thing corporations know how to do, it's how to apply technology and automation to create a consistent product. We've got it all down to a science. From the moment a child is placed on the conveyor belt, they are moved down a line of corporate designed standard curriculum and quality control tests. Schools automatically filter out the defects, those outside corporately acceptable tolerances. Once pulled from the line, you end up in a bin for discard or recycling. This bin is commonly known as the US prison system.

At the end of the line, a successful product is optimally refined to meet the immediate need of today's market. Of course the immediate needs changes on a daily basis as we try to out smart the corporate forces sending jobs to Mexico one day, China the next, India the next and Vietnam the next in a never ending pursuit of nations willing to enforce rock bottom standard of living conditions for their workers.

The technocrats actually envision a nation where we start each day checking the market conditions for our chosen profession ready to move from electronics technician to carpenter to auto mechanic to computer programmer at a moments notice. To the 3rd way, there are no careers or native talents. Skills are just an abstraction, something bought and sold on the market, like stock in a company. If you get washed out of the American dream, its only because you were too lazy to pay attention and invest in the most profitable market of the moment.

We have come to devalue a career as something you buy from a low wage workforce in a god forsaken hell hole in Asia. The consequences of this reckless and dangerous transition to a "knowledge based economy" is that we are literally losing the ability to innovate in areas that keep the nation competitive. We can't all make a living giving $300,000 "knowledge" speeches on the lecture circuit. By not developing essential hands-on skills we are becoming a highly engineered monoculture, susceptible to a single point of failure.

Consider that our banking system recently collapsed due to criminal activity. Our inability to punish the perpetrators and conspirators, perfectly illustrates this important point. Surely there are skilled individuals with the talent, regulatory background and proper sense of right and wrong who understand how important it is to serve justice to the criminals behind this massive fraud. The sense of honor and patriotism in being able to serve the nation by bringing justice should be motivation enough... where are they? I argue they've been deliberately washed out of our government as adding no value to our nation's newly developed corporate mission statement.

That's as far as I got...

May 25, 2015

There may not be an official military draft, but there seems to be a virtual one

A few years ago I was walking between airport terminals and passed a women in fatigues, pack at her side, crying by a window. I turned around and asked if there was anything I could do. She was heading back to Afghanistan, distraught about another long and difficult deployment. We talked a while. She came from poor family with no chance to pay for college. The Army offered training, pay and a way out. So she signed up, hoping to learn IT skills to land a job after her tour. I listened carefully, some of it was heartbreaking. It was a story I had heard before, from others, and continue to hear to this day. I'm sure we've all heard similar stories as well.

Something is way out of balance.

Here are the facts of our economy for a non-rich American:

- Good paying jobs continue to hemorrhage to China, India, Mexico, Brazil, etc as a result of our never ending trade agreements to ship US jobs to low wage labor markets.

- Education costs continue to rise at 2X and 3X the rate of inflation as colleges fill up with wealthy students from China, India and Wall Street families, the sole beneficiaries of our trade agreements. Students from wealthy families of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Kuwait, etc are crowding out non-rich students from college classrooms.

- The minimum wage, adjusted for inflation has decreased since 1968. It should be about $20 per hour.

- Middle class wages and wealth remains virtually unchanged since the late 1970s, while the top 10% have seen their incomes and wealth increase by 100 to 1000 of percent, after being adjusted for inflation.

- Employers are not hiring anyone with an arrest record, dismissed or not.

Kids are joining the military for economic opportunity. Shouldn't service be a shared sacrifice? Why should the rich prosper by the sacrifices of the poor who serve?

Some days I think the draft is the right thing to do. But then I'm reminded that Dick Cheney and GW Bush and a battalions worth of right-wing Chickenhawks in Congress weaseled their way out of service.

Maybe the answer is mandatory service without exception, I don't know.

But I do know deliberately depriving people of the economic opportunity to build a life on their own is keeping our military flush with recruits who provide the necessary fodder for our misadventures in the Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

It almost seems by design.

As we reflect on the sacrifices of those who serve, let's acknowledge that the sacrifices must be shared more fairly between rich and poor.